AZW is a digital ebook file format developed by Amazon for its Kindle devices. The format was adopted from MobiPocket eBook MOBI file format and DRM protection was applied for their usage on Kindle devices only. AZW files can store things like formatted text, bookmarks, and other information as is part of the Mobipocket .PRC files. DRM protected AZW files can’t be read by other devices and can be read using Kindle devices. AZW files can be converted to a number of other file formats such as PDF, EPUB, AZW3, DOCX, and RTF. AZW files have internet media type application/vnd.amazon.mobi8-ebook.
AZW File Format
AZW is a close file format and its specifications are not available publicly.
Creating AZW Files
Amazon KindleGen lets you create AZW files. It is a command-line tool that enables publishers to create AZW files from source content including HTML, XHTML or EPUB. The AZW file, hence, generated supports both KF8 and Mobi format. KindleGen is the recommended content generator for Kindle devices by Amazon and is available for all popular platforms including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.